Liquid cleanser compositions providing some kind of benefit agent are known in the art. Thus, for example, the use of silicones, oils and other emollients in liquid compositions for providing skin care benefit is known.
One method of enhancing the delivery of the benefit agent (e.g., vegetable oil, silicone) to the skin or hair, for example, is through the use of cationic hydrophilic polymers such as Polymer JR.RTM. from Americhol or Jagua.RTM. from Rhone Poulenc (see WO 94/03152). In this reference generally small sized silicone particles are uniformly distributed throughout the liquid cleanser.
Another way of enhancing delivery of benefit agent is utilizing larger size benefit agent particles. To suspend such particles without causing separation of the particles or oil droplets (e.g., flocculation, coalescence, creaming or breaking), however, is not an easy task.
One way of suspending larger size particles is through the use of thickeners such as xanthan gum. Xanthan gum thickeners are taught, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,837 to Pader (see column 22, Table II, example 16); and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,006 to Bolich Jr.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,610 to Grollier (L'Oreal) teaches thickened or gelled hair conditioning compositions which use xanthan gum as thickener. All the examples appear to exemplify only a cationic surfactant as principal surfactant and there appears to be no teaching of an oil or emollient, let alone a disclosure of particle size.
Several patents also disclose the use of a cross-linked polyacrylic type polymer with silicone. U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,857 to Reid et al., for example, teaches in example 1 a Carbopol.RTM. in combination with silicone oil. There is no teaching of xanthan gum, however, and the silicone oil is an emulsion, i.e., not large sized silicone droplets (typically median particle sizes of emulsions are about 0.3 to 0.5 microns).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,643 to Thiel teaches shampoo compositions comprising an oily conditioning agent, (e.g., silicone), a carboxyvinyl polymer, a cationic conditioning agent and water. There is no teaching of xanthan gum.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,695 to Abrutyn et al. teaches a method of depositing silicone by entrapping silicone in a nontoxic hydrophobic macroporous highly x-linked polymer. There is no xanthan gum.